


I'm hot like the prodigal son

by iiscos



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Footy Ficathon, M/M, more ridiculous fics from me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-24
Updated: 2015-05-24
Packaged: 2018-04-01 02:01:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4001659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iiscos/pseuds/iiscos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Toni moves to Spain for postgraduate studies. Isco is the weird nocturnal neighbor with whom he shares a thin wall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm hot like the prodigal son

**Author's Note:**

> Based off of this prompt on Footy Ficathon. It took me way longer than it should to discover this community.
> 
> _college!AU where toni is the german exchange student who barely speaks a word of spanish and isco is the weird nocturnal guy who keeps setting off the fire alarm at random hours of the night whenever he so much as touches the stove_
> 
> _(Toni: What kind of tea is this?_  
>  Isco: Oh, I boiled some Gatorade.)

Red light means stop, and green light means go. Sure, that’s universal, but one thing Toni didn’t know about Spain is that green light didn’t necessarily guarantee safety at the pedestrian crossing. Or maybe the driver is just an asshole, Toni wouldn’t know. This was his first attempt at traversing a street since arriving in Madrid, so it’s not like he has much to go by.

“ _¡Hijo de puta!_ ” A bearded, horse-faced man—who could be considered handsome if he hadn’t almost ended Toni’s young life—yells through the rolled down window of a yellow taxi.

Toni is still clutching at his chest when the rude cabbie drives past, his lone suitcase knocked over from when he had jolted backwards to the safety of the sidewalk. The Spaniard’s choice of expression is beyond the scope of Toni’s vocabulary, but the German supposes that it’s not exactly hard to decipher the sentiment there.

Toni can speak Spanish, but it’s the kind of Spanish that one learns in Germany—overly stiff, overly formal, and lacking in any sort of the musical fluidity so innate to the native speakers.

“ _¿Dónde está el cine?_ ” Toni can say. “ _Aquí está mi pasaporte._ ” No problem. “ _Real Madrid va a ganar el clásico_ ” is permanently branded to his brain from the years of useless high school Spanish, but God forbid if Toni wants to ask for directions or order take out, because the words will conveniently evaporate then, leaving the German bumbling like an idiot to puzzled eyes and sympathetic smiles.

Maybe it’s a performance issue, Toni reasons, because his Spanish is _fine_ , at least according to his German speaking Spanish professors who decorated him with As every semester. He is self-conscious even though he doesn’t like to admit it, the way every word requires thought and hesitation, every syllable an acrobatic hurdle for his stiff and foreign tongue.

Toni isn’t so arrogant to assume assimilation would come easily—languages are hard, and civilizations can be boundlessly diverse, even if Germany and Spain are only separated by a three-hour flight. But hell, did he expect his first culture shock to be a hurtling taxi, along with a near death experience and a mouthful of obscenities when Toni clearly had the right of way.

~~

“ _¡Hijo de puta!_ ”

Toni hears the phrase again two nights later. It wakes him up, more specifically, from his already fitful sleep. 

Toni has moved into a studio apartment on a busy street of Madrid. It’s part of a larger apartment complex that includes a small courtyard bedecked with a gazebo and a fenced in dog park. The windows are nice and big, and the ceiling is high, so the rooms feel spacious even though the actual dimensions are nothing to dote over. But the location is convenient—just a 20 minute walk from the university and every form of public transportation Toni could dream of deciphering in the next few days—so the German could hardly believe his luck when the place became available only a week before his scheduled move.

However, after living in the seemingly blessed apartment for two days and two nights, Toni is beginning to realize perhaps why competition had been so lax. The walls must’ve be constructed with the thinnest material imaginable, and his next door neighbor is quite frankly obnoxious.

“ _¡Mierda!_ ” came another feverish cry, and Toni is wide-awake by now, catching the lucid syllables piercing through the silence of the night.

 _Mierda! The Real Spanish You Were Never Taught in School_ is the title of the book Toni had received from Thomas the evening before his flight. It was mostly a gag gift, which only Thomas had found to be amusing at the time, but now that Toni is actually in Spain having to deal with someone even more insufferable than Thomas—damn his luck—he should probably thank his boisterous young friend for his startling intuition.

So yes, after skimming the pages of the cartoonish book, Toni knows what “ _mierda_ ” means, and he knows what “ _hijo de puta_ ” means. He also knows “ _metértela en la boca_ ” and “ _ha sido el major sexo de mi vida_ ” but he doubts he will need to use these anytime soon.

“ _¡Beso mi culo, Dani Alves!_ ” is the last thing Toni hears, followed by the distinctive sound of compact, rounded plastic—a PlayStation controller, perhaps—knocking against the wooden floor.

Dani Alves is a footballer in Spain, if Toni remembers correctly. The German looks blearily to the clock by his nightstand, the early hour of the morning displayed in large, iridescent numbers. He starts his graduate studies tomorrow, which means he will need to get up in less than four hours. Who the hell would be playing FIFA by himself at three in the morning, is the last thing on Toni’s mind before sleep inevitably retakes him.

~~

Toni joins the Ancelotti Lab in the chemistry department of _Universidad de Madrid_. Professor Ancelotti is a renowned researcher in Europe, having established a lab in both Italy and Spain. He recruits the best scientists and students from all over the world, so not everyone in his lab is Spanish, which makes Toni feel slightly better about his own abysmal language abilities.

Toni shares a research bench with Luka—a Croatian technician with a perpetually confused face, even though he has been working in the lab for two years already—and Dani—a Spanish graduate student who speaks a bit of German after completing his Master’s in Leverkusen.

“I know Madrid has some of the prettiest people you’ve seen,” Dani says without removing his gaze from the computer screen, after Toni yawned for the third time in five minutes. “And I know you’re probably sexually repressed judging by the way you look, but you can’t just blow your nights and money away every chance you get.”

In his unnatural caffeine induced state of awake, it takes Toni several seconds to process those words. “What are you talking about?”

“You can’t get your Ph.D. if you’re fucking bitches all night every night,” Dani rephrases with even less tact than before, if possible. “Get some fucking sleep.”

“I’m not tired because of sex,” Toni says, astonished and marginally offended. “I have a noisy neighbor.”

“Your neighbor is fucking bitches all night every night?” Dani widens his eyes. “Tough luck, man.”

“He’s not fucking bitches.” Toni wrinkles his nose in disdain at the thought of the thin wall separating him and the most annoying human in existence. “He doesn’t have much sex. He’s mostly by himself at night, doing random things. I have no idea why he has to be so loud.”

“What does he do?”

“Rearranges his furniture, works out, streams porn,” Toni lists a few, shrugging one shoulder.

“What kind of porn?”

“Does it matter?” Toni is momentarily caught out by the frankness and apparent intuition of Dani’s tone.

“Of course it matters.” Dani finally turns to the German, his expression solemn and stern beneath his impressive beard. “It matters a lot.”

Toni nods slowly until his colleague turns away, fervency subsided. He has the rest of the workday to dwell on that note.

~~

That night, just as Toni teeters on the edge of sleep, he hears the funky beats of an electric guitar with a wah-wah pedal drift through the silence of his bedroom. It’s shocking how perceptible everything is, the music and dialogues so clear that Toni is able to decipher what minimal plot the film had managed to incorporate for aesthetic purposes. And it only takes five minutes of tacky music, rhythmic grunts, and sporadic pleadings to deities for the German to learn that José is the lucky recipient of an unexpectedly _large_ package, and that the cast of this fine pornographic film is indeed all male.

~~

After living for two weeks in various states of sleep-deprivation, Toni finally decides to confront his neighbor, after the combined noise pollution of fire alarms, plates smashing, dog barking, and swearing in Spanish ripped him from his peaceful slumber.

“It’s very late, and people are trying to sleep!” Toni—clad in boxer shorts and a tank—shouts in groggy, German-accented Spanish. “Can you hear me?”

The response is obscured by the alarm and barking dog, but judging by the procession of sounds, Toni’s neighbor has no intention of actually opening the door.

The German feels his patience thinning as his fist collides with the pane of wood. “Quiet down, or I will call the police!”

The door opens then, revealing the head of a small, dark-haired Spaniard with shining eyes and a scruffy beard that hid his otherwise infantile features. He’s wearing nothing but boxer briefs, as he does a double take down both ends of the empty hallway before returning his gaze to the German at his door.

“You’re not the police,” the Spaniard says accusingly, before pulling Toni into his apartment by the fabric of his tank.

“That’s not what I said!” Toni could barely manage before the door is slammed behind him.

~~

“ _Mein Gott!_ ”

Toni gasps when he finally lays eyes to the apartment of the man who had cost him so much sleep in the past week. The studio is nearly identical to his, although a horrendous litter in comparison, and Toni hasn’t even finished unpacking, mind you. Smoke occupies the space that air has left, and the German is quick to spot the source—a small fire inside a teakettle by the stove. The alarm is blaringly loud now that he is inside, and he feels a migraine blooming behind his left eye. Toni wants to leave this place and never come back, but something tells him it’s too late.

“Shut up, Messi!” the Spaniard shouts, and the yellow Labrador corralled in his bedroom silences for perhaps a fraction of a second before commencing with his incessant barking.

“ _¡Cristo!_ ” the dark-haired man swears as he rummages through the kitchen. He hands Toni an oven pan, and he’s trying to tell him something—the German is sure of it—but the Spanish is too rapid and the words practically indiscernible. All Toni could really do is stare with his smoke agitated eyes.

“The window—” Toni finally picks up something. _La ventana_ , yeah, he knows that word. 

Toni takes the oven pan and swings, guiding the thick, grey smoke into the open night air. It must’ve been what the small Spaniard had wanted, because he shuts up then, sprinting to the bathroom to retrieve a bucket of water. The Spaniard dumps the contents onto the open fire, the flames hissing as they extinguish, releasing even more smoke into the space of the small apartment. 

“What is it, that happened?” Toni winces as a wave of vaporized and quite possibly carcinogenic chemicals greet his senses. He sees the charred teakettle lying pitifully in a puddle on the floor. “Did you burn— _tea?_ ”

The Spaniard shakes his head, waving a dismissive hand. He says something in an offhanded manner that Toni doesn’t know the meaning of. 

“Can you—” The German furrows his brows. “I don’t understand.”

The Spaniard rubs the back of his neck, looking around his wrecked apartment as if something else might offer a better explanation. He says that word again, and points to the kitchen. Toni inspects the scene more carefully this time, now that the smoke is partially cleared. 

Something viscous and fluorescent blue is oozing out of the teakettle, dissolving well into the surrounding water. There is a half-empty plastic bottle on the kitchen counter, containing a liquid of similar coloration. Toni takes exactly three seconds to piece together the fragmented information.

The idiot was boiling fucking Gatorade. 

“I forgot about it,” the Spaniard says earnestly as he approaches the German with a matching oven pan in hand. They must have braved the worst of the storm because the Spanish is slower, clearer. “If the smoke gets in the hallway, all the fire alarms will go off, and the whole building will have to evacuate.”

The Spaniard nods as if he had shared something impressively insightful. He also appears to be speaking from experience. 

“My name is Isco.” He then extends a hand. “Thanks for the help.”

Toni takes the hand out of sheer politeness. “Toni. I am your new neighbor.”

“Where did you move from?”

“Germany.”

“Ah!” The Spaniard’s face livens up. “Welcome to Madrid!”

~~

Toni helps Isco clean his apartment, solely for the sake of his own sanity, knowing that the clatter next door will inevitably keep him awake if he were to leave the Spaniard to his own devices.

Toni had arrived to his neighbor's home prepared with a speech to deliver, but all of it has been forgotten since the moment Isco hauled him into his burning inferno of an apartment. By the time the kitchen is cleaned and the floor is mopped, Isco appears exhausted to the core the way a toddler would be after a day of strenuous play. Toni finds him doting on the brink of sleep, curled up beside his yellow Labrador on the couch.

“Hey,” Toni says stiffly, nudging his neighbor on the shoulder, “I’m going to leave now, but I came here to talk to you about our wall. It’s very thin, and I can hear everything you do.”

“Really?” Isco looks blearily to the German. “I don’t hear you at all.”

“That’s because you’re very loud, and I am not.”

“Sorry,” the Spaniard mumbles, lashes quivering as he struggles to stay awake.

Toni keeps his lecture brief, emphasizing on the most important points, which is Isco’s nocturnal habits. He offers some solutions too, quiet activities that the Spaniard can try the next time he has trouble sleeping—including, but not limited to: reading, knitting, doing crossword puzzles, playing solitaire, and writing letters to distant relatives. Isco’s hazardous cooking is another issue the German feels compelled to address especially considering the close proximity of their living areas. Eating out more often could do the trick, or perhaps cooking with a responsible friend who has enough common sense not to boil Gatorade. 

Isco is half asleep by the time Toni reaches his formal conclusion, but the German feels a great sense of accomplishment nonetheless, as he sees himself out of the Spaniard’s chaotic nest and back to his own nice, clean, orderly apartment.

~~

Toni doesn’t hear Isco for the next three nights, and it does wonders for his sleep. He feels energized and motivated, sharper during class, more outgoing during social events. He is happier with his performance in lab—and in life in general—and honestly, he hasn’t displayed such a wholesome version of himself in so long, it’s shocking to everyone involved.

Toni blames it on Isco really, and his obnoxiously loud nightly habits, but he can’t even stay angry because the Spaniard has heeded to his complaints immediately and perhaps, isn’t as loathsome of a neighbor as Toni had painted in his mind prior to meeting the guy. 

Toni is cutting carrots, potatoes, and cabbage for his stew one evening, when he hears a knock at the door. The German wipes his hands clean with a dishrag before answering and is quite frankly stunned to find his Spanish neighbor on the other side, dressed in a fitting black T-shirt while holding a bottle of Rioja. 

“Hi,” Isco says, all bright eyes and pleasant smiles, “I brought wine.”

The German can only gape wordlessly. “What?”

“You said we should have dinner,” the Spaniard wrinkles his brows, his easy smile faltering in face of the German’s confusion.

“No, I didn’t.” Toni shakes his head, wide-eyed.

“You said I should cook with a responsible friend,” Isco insists, “And that we should have dinner sometime at your place, over candles, music, and nice wine.”

“ _No._ ” Toni fights the stutter against his tongue and the rising panic in his chest. “I said you should cook with a responsible friend, and that is all. I stopped talking after that.”

“Oh.” Isco looks at the toe of his shoe, redness rising to his cheeks. “The rest must’ve been a dream. Well, this is embarrassing.”

A long, awkward, pregnant minute passes before either of them says anything, and Toni swears he is about to jump out of his skin. Isco is the first to break the silence, however. “Sorry to disturb you—I guess I should go.”

“Wait,” Toni sighs just as the Spaniard motions to leave. He glances at the wine, and okay, it looks like good wine, and maybe a worthy compensation for this undesirable encounter. “I’m cooking dinner anyway. You can join, if you want.”

Toni expects some hesitation on the Spaniard’s part—another apology maybe, or perhaps some verbal concern about intruding on the German’s evening. Isco does no such thing however, peering curiously into Toni’s apartment before walking inside.

~~

Isco is two years younger than Toni. He graduated from _Universidad de Málaga_ last year and moved to Madrid for a Master’s in business. He lives with his best friend and lifetime companion Messi, who is named after the Barcelona football star Lionel Messi. Isco was an avid Barcelona fan up until he was ten years old, when his brother signed for Real Madrid, their bitter cross-country rivals. The transition was hard and involved a lot of screaming and tears on Isco’s part, but Isco decided that he would support his brother no matter what. Messi kept his name, however, because no matter which crest Isco wore, Lionel Messi is still the best in the world, and so is Isco’s dog.

Isco gets free tickets to Real Madrid matches, and suggests that Toni should totally go with him, because you can’t get a real taste of culture in Madrid without going to a football game. Toni says he supports Bayern Munich, and Isco admits that he doesn’t particularly care for Bayern and wishes them luck in the Bundesliga for Toni, but if Real and Bayern were to face off in the Champions League, Toni better prepare to see his team get their asses kicked. 

Toni likes the glimmer in Isco’s eyes when the Spaniard gets excited, and the way his speech speeds up so that one syllable trails the next, until words are no longer discernible. Toni has to remind Isco often to slow down, which he does after apologizing, only to forget two minutes later, and the cycle repeats. 

Toni thinks Isco is cute, but that might just be the wine talking, because up until very recently, Toni thought Isco was annoying as fuck. 

How they moved from casually talking about football to making out on the couch, Toni will never know. 

Isco is small and light, and Toni likes the weight of the Spaniard in his lap, kissing his neck, and rutting against his thigh. He runs a hand down Isco’s side, squeezing his ass and relishing the breathy moans.

“Can we go to the bedroom?” Isco says, lips swollen and cheeks dusted red. “To fuck,” he adds needlessly when Toni appears to hesitate.

Toni rolls his eyes. He knows what Isco meant. “It’s just that—I don’t have—”

He doesn’t know how to say condoms or lube in Spanish, something else he wishes his foreign language requirement had offered before kicking him through the doors to adulthood. He had just moved to Madrid less than three weeks ago and was hardly anticipating to have company in such a short period of time.

“I would gladly blow you, though,” Toni says almost in compensation, before Isco reaches into the pocket of his jeans, revealing condoms and a small bottle of lube.

“Did you come here, expecting sex?” Toni laughs, shaking his head. What a little tart. 

“No,” Isco smiles demurely, “Just being hopeful.”

~~

Toni has very practical sleeping habits after sex. Cuddling is nice, although not necessary, particularly during summer time. Space and blankets should be shared evenly, unless otherwise noted. Pillows meanwhile are not to be shared, and Toni will gladly provide enough to go around.

Isco, on the other hand, abides to no boundaries. He is as restless in sleep as in wakefulness, tossing and turning constantly, while wrapping himself in a cocoon with the covers and leaving nothing for his unfortunate bed partner. He steals Toni’s pillow, and then uses Toni as a pillow after the stolen pillow has fallen off the mattress. He giggles in his slumber too, interspersed with talking in random bursts of complete gibberish. And after the third time he knees Toni in the ribs, the German finally shifts to wrap his arms around the Spaniard’s waist, effectively immobilizing him.

He kisses Isco sweetly behind the ear, before whispering, “Move again, and I will destroy you.”

Toni supposes that kicking Isco out of his apartment would’ve been easier and not even completely discourteous, since the Spaniard lives merely a few feet away. But Toni chooses to dwell on the positives of his decision, considering that he now has a cute, compliant, _quiet_ Spaniard in his arms, while Isco—for the remainder of the night—barely breathed enough to stay alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback would be lovely! xx


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